pockets full of stones
by starinhercorner
Summary: "He was a lung in the ocean, part of a whole and moving without thinking. Or so he tried to be." Post-"Summit."


A return to Atlantis that night would have seemed premature, despite his King's assurance that news of the true nature and intent of his defection would reach all ears in the kingdom as soon as possible. He knew he had a mother and a father waiting for him there; in his mind he could clearly see, as deep-set as her gills, the worry lines he knew had been scrawled across his mother's face by his own hand. He could see her eyes and how they always shone more brightly, with her youth and yet despite age all at once, than any light all her pearls and shells could reflect. The face of the man he had called "Father" for years was less distinct, and compared to that of the man he had called "Father" for mere months, it was simply—shamefully—a blur. Even the word laid a fog down onto his thoughts—the word signified too much to him, yet had lost so much of its meaning.

The bed in which through month upon month he had laid much more than he had slept and the steel walls that surrounded it were far away now, no less and no _more_ distant than the sleeping quarters in his older, _old_, home. He knew others would tell him he still had every right to return to the place from where he came, that he had a claim to that humble dwelling in Shayeris, but his head and his heart told him otherwise. His betrayal was not marked by his choice to trade allegiances, but it was still his choice, and it was still a betrayal. He did not expect his allies, his friends, his _everyone_ to trust him again. After all, he had come to hold so little of the sentiment towards himself.

The expanse of a white-speckled black sky was a change of pace from low gray ceilings and blinking red lights, and it was an adjustment for Kaldur to recognize that he was no longer boxed in; just as it was to realize that there was no need to watch his every step, to calculate every slouch and shrug of his shoulders, or to regulate his sighs, for no one else would be taking note. He was alone at this moment, footsteps tracing the borders of the dock outside of the warehouse (a ware_home_, Garfield had clarified earlier) that Dick had established as the Team's temporary base. The significance of this location was not lost on him; he knew this to be where Artemis had officially joined him on his mission. Whether the decision had been a conscious one or not, it seemed as though Dick's conscience was not without its weight, despite Kaldur's preference and his belief that he himself should bear all shame for what had been done. Dick was still so young, and he had been the boy's leader before all of this. He had been leader to all of them, and they all saw him as such. He saw himself in this way as well: a _former_ leader to the Team.

He had never ceased being a leader, a general, but for a time the soldiers he led became only that; troops, artillery, men, numbers. He had slipped on that life and bolted himself into it like his armor, and just like the training that had carried him through it, he could feel himself carrying it all still, even with the black plating swapped for his unretired red and blue suit, and for his surface world jacket and jeans over it. His hands reached into civilian pockets grasping for weapons, just for assurance, and his fingers only caught brushes of bare skin and soft lining in the place of thick rubber and hard metal. Instead of bleached white fluorescent washing over him from bulbs embedded in the walls, the lights suspended over his head held a steady amber glow, and specks of red and green stood out from across the water; all distant. Even the air felt strange. There was so much more of it there, with so much more mind and movement, than in the corridors of Black Manta's vessel.

He was not sure which atmosphere felt more oppressive.

Despite the lack of a planned path for his walk, reaching the corner of the dock furthest from the warehouse and seeing ocean at his feet instead of concrete felt like reaching a destination. He stepped out of his sandals and shed the clothes that covered his uniform, folding them and stacking them with more urgency than care. The protective railing around the dock had been built with gaps between the bars wide enough for him to slip through; and he let himself sink into the water slowly, let it claim him base by base, territory by territory. Ankles did not even skim the surface until toes had been completely submerged and assimilated, and knees did not join them until ankles had, and hips did not go before knees—and on and on, until the water was halfway up his ribs. He peeled his fingers from the bars slowly, as if his grip was something he had forgotten how to loosen for fear of losing it, and floating was something he had forgotten how to experience without becoming lost. He knew it to be a quirk of surface worlders to do the same, their bodies unaccustomed to becoming part of something bigger so suddenly, to have that weight and significance thrust upon them. When he was a child, he would laugh, and chide his father for attempting to fool him with such stories. Now, he understood the threat of drowning, and the fear.

Breaking through the surface and into a new plane, with new light and new darkness and new depth and limits was like falling into sleep, except that it only opened his eyes wider. The ocean stretched out for miles before him like the sky had before, but it was filled with no clouds or stars, only itself. The new atmosphere made his skin tingle. Bands of black ink wrapped around his arms momentarly sparked a mystic blue from the exposure to what was, in many ways, the source of his strength. Pores opened to drink it all in. He felt the water push at his back as it churned ever so subtly, never settling and not allowing him stillness either, not while he was inside of it. Lowering his head in a kind of nod, he accepted the command, thankful for it. There were no roads in the ocean, and no paths marked here like at home; no manmade landmarks, only rock and flora far below him, built and planted by time; and no direction in which to move but forward, which felt like everywhere. There were no pros or cons to weigh before taking his next action—no mistake to make.

It was not long until there was no sense remaining of posts or of walls or of a city above or behind him. The world had become a single endless space. He let the water push his hands open and release their tension as he dragged them through it. His bare kicking feet left a trail of soft tremors in the water, oscillating like an ocean current all its own. His head and shoulders cut through hundreds upon thousands of gallons of physical resistance like it was nothing, and at the same time, like it was everything. Like it was the only thing in the world, the only task to execute to maintain equilibrium, as breathing was to a body. He was a lung in the ocean, part of a whole and moving without thinking.

Or so he tried to be. His eyes were seeing every shadow as a potential factor in an ambush, as a hidden ship poised to emerge from the blackness. His vision was ever threatening to be swarmed with enemies, stationed in the weeds below him—stationed somehow in the space behind him, the distance he had just crossed, and that every inch forward was opening himself up wider for attack. Flutters of water grazed his shoulders as he sighed through his gills, and his hands closed tight into fists—still not around the hilts of his weapons, but around themselves. He knew, logically, that there was nothing behind him. He knew, honestly, that he had left nothing behind.

He could feel the familiar cold of the ocean in his thick skin and it nestled itself there, reaching down into him no further, unable to break through him and shake his bones. He felt his father's arms around him in much the same way, scratching his surface, pressing into him with just enough strength to be recognized and felt—but beyond that, not enough to shake him. It was his Atlantean skin, after all, that sustained him in both the shallows and the depths; generations of adaptation and tradition manifest in him, his markings, his power, his heart. And Black Manta was an enemy of Atlantis. He had earned his place as such.

Kaldur had earned his place as an enemy of Black Manta as well.


End file.
